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by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: The Oversight - Charlie Fletcher
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2014-08-20
Packaged: 2018-02-13 05:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2138505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They found Mr Sharp on his knees with his eyes blank and unseeing, and drained of all colour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

They found Mr Sharp on his knees in a passageway, between two mirrors placed there by Sara Falk several days earlier. His eyes were blank and unseeing, and drained of all colour.

Sara edged forwards just so far, and then no farther; Lucy and Charlie hung back further still. The Smith was out on the marshes, being sent for by the Raven. Cook had a sailor's ear for trouble and was coming from the kitchen – they could hear her footsteps getting louder, thumping hobnailed on the steep stairs, but still distant, granting them a moment or two more of silence. 

"Well, now," Hodge said, calm and quiet. "Well, Jack, you've come back to us" - and it might be that he was speaking like he did to his animals, soft not to scare them, but that would do, Sara was thinking. Here in this place, where people had been broken by glass, that would do well.

"Wayland?" Mr Sharp said, eyes flicking over his shoulder, alert and transparent, and Sara nodded and said,

"He's fine, he's coming, drink this" – and there was Cook, marching forwards with that mug of shipboard courage, and he dipped his head and drank deeply of spices and warmth.

*

"You'll tell us about it, Jack," the Smith said, when he came, and they sat in the warm kitchen and he did tell them, quiet and steady, of the way home. Sara Falk stood in the passageway with her covered hands on the stone, and said nothing.

"His eyes," Lucy said, her footsteps quiet, still reluctant to go any closer, and Sara nodded. 

But Charlie said, "I don't understand" – and Lucy, who had seen him only once, was not able to explain to Charlie, who had never seen him at all. 

They waited for Sara's answer, which took time. "He paid something, to return," she said, at last. "Whether it were loan or loss, I do not know." 

"Before," Lucy said, "he could turn anyone to his will, and be turned by no one else."

"Mr Sharp could do that?" Charlie asked, and Lucy nodded, and Sara nodded and shook her head; she had been thinking of him as Jack Sharp, recently, the name of the child she had known, as though more than the glamour had been drained from him.

*

There was the matter of the Oversight. 

"Let it be," Sara said, fiercely in the face of the Smith's calm. "Let him be. There is a Last Hand, and now…"

"An untrained Hand," the Smith said, "is worse than none at all. And his ability is valuable and rare…"

"And may be gone, entirely," Sara said. "What will your answer be to that, Wayland?"

"This," the Smith said. "That this is the Safe House of the Oversight: that we keep the secrets, and the Wildfire. And that he is no longer haunted by the things that haunt this house."

"Take him down into the passage," Sara said, steadfast. "Have him take the candle."

"And if it should not light," Sharp said, "what then?"

They turned as one to the door to where he was standing, leaning on the lintel; it was impossible to stay how long he had been there, and how much he had heard, though obvious to most that he would not remain standing much longer. 

"There," Cook said, taking his elbow and leading him to one of the wooden kitchen chairs, "you shouldn't strain yourself." She had tacked from side to side of the argument, without ever making harbour, as though kindness opposed duty within her. 

"If the candle don't light," Hodge said, quiet and ponderous, "then he's not what he was. But of woman born, still, and in London at that."

"And under our protection," Cook said, settling on one side at last, and turning to the hob.

*

It was Lucy, who had felt it once before, who recognised it for what it was: the tilt in the stairs as she climbed them, the longing, though the winter gales were raging around the house, for tawny leaves in autumn, and after that the languour. She turned on one foot and moved methodically through the house until she found Sara Falk, and brought her to the point in the stair, to place her uncovered hands on the balustrade.

Sara took the vision without pain, as though even within herself, she knew it was a gift; she said, "Thank you", serious and solemn, and set off for the kitchen with Lucy at a safe distance behind her, to where Sharp and Hodge were talking of small nothingnesses.

"You would not see the change in him," Sara said to Hodge, "not with the Raven's eyes. She is an uncommonly steady bird, and I have it from her that she sees no colours. And you" – she looked at Sharp, then at Lucy, then back at Sharp, and seemingly could say no more.

Sharp rose and bowed to Lucy, and left the room without saying a word, though they could smell the softness of late pollen in the air, and hear some distant crunch of leaves.

*

It was only a day afterwards that he sought Lucy out, and said, formally, "Lucy Harker, of the Last Hand. I apologise."

Lucy turned to him, not understanding.

"It is not to be used, not while I am not in the service of Law and Lore," Mr Sharp said, "but I am learning. Learning again."

His eyes were a familiar tawny colour, but the ground stayed perfectly sound and still beneath her. "I accept your apology, Mr Sharp," she said.

"Thank you," he said, and bowed to her again before taking leave of her; she stood at the foot of the stairs, and watched him climb the stairs to the first landing, slowly, as though still recovering from something that they could not understand. For a moment she thought she saw his reflection in the mirror, and then a flash of another person's eyes – Sara Falk. Waiting, perhaps; perhaps something else that Lucy did not understand. 

"Don't you ask what they are to one another, dearie," Cook said, as though guessing precisely what Lucy had been thinking. "Like as not there'll be another Hand, one of these days. Come down for your tea, have you?"

"Yes," Lucy said, surprised, and thought to add, "thank you" - and followed Cook into the kitchen, the warm space of the house.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "reunion" square on my trope_bingo card.


End file.
